No zooming in on 'hot' female fans during World Cup 2018: Fifa tells broadcasters

Fifa is keen on cracking down on broadcasters cutting to the crowd and zooming in on young female fans at major tournaments, including the ongoing World Cup in Russia in its efforts to curb sexism in football.

Television producers have been habituated to showing attractive women on television and the practice exits across multiple sports.

Known as the "honey shot," drooling over women during sports broadcasting has existed since the 70s. Noted American television director Andy Sidaris had taken credit for taking such shots to the masses while calling himself "a dirty old man," according to the Slate.

Honey shots have been a common phenomenon at this year's World Cup as well. In what can be called as objectification, young and attractive women have often found screen time, evoking responses from the broadcasters as well as fans.

Fifa's stand against sexism

Fifa's diversity boss Federico Addiechi has said the crackdown on cutaways of female fans is not yet an official policy but that the governing body is keen on "taking action against things that are wrong".

"This is one of the activities that we definitely will have in the future – it's a normal evolution. We have done it on a case-by-case basis when some cases arose and they were pretty evident," Addiechi said, as quoted by the Irish Examiner.

"We've done it with individual broadcasters. We've done it as well with our host broadcast services."

Fifa has joined hands with the anti-discrimination group, Fare Network for monitoring the behaviour of fans in Russia. Its executive director Piara Powar insists sexism has been one of the biggest problems at the ongoing World Cup, according to the Irish Examiner.

Powar shed light on how instances of female reporters being kissed or grabbed on live television are becoming a common phenomenon at this year's World Cup. He also revealed that the group has come across more than 30 cases of Russian women being "accosted" in the streets by male fans.

Social media compares 'hotness' of women from different countries

Another appalling trend that has emerged on social media is comparing the "hotness" of women from different countries by using the honey shots. There are stand-alone pages on Twitter dedicated for sharing and comparing screenshots of young women at the World Cup.

Recently, Getty Images published a photo gallery titled "the hottest fans at the World Cup" and it featured only women. The image-hosting platform took down the gallery after critical response and even issued an apology for the same.